Otfried Preußler

They changed their family name from the Czech Syrowatka to the German Preußler in 1941 during the Nazi occupation of the country.

After he graduated school in 1942, in the midst of World War II, he was drafted into the German Army.

After his release in June 1949, he found his displaced relatives and his fiancée, Annelies Kind in the Bavarian town of Rosenheim.

There his talents as a storyteller and illustrator were put to good use, and often the stories he told the children would later be written down and published.

Having essentially retired from writing stories, which had become his main occupation, he undertook the relation of his experiences as a prisoner in the POW camps; those memoirs are to be published after his death.